Harry's Unrelated Post-Graduation Adventures
by Jade Skywalker
Summary: Harry, Ron, and Hermione still have adventures of sorts after they leave Hogwarts. Please read and review. Tell me whether you like my absurd story.
1. Harry in Las Vegas

Disclaimer: I own nothing. All Harry Potter stuff is J.K. Rowling's.  
  
Harry in Las Vegas  
  
Harry Potter awoke on a fine summer morning and reflected on all his previous adventures. He seemed to do that every summer. Just a month ago he had graduated with special wizard honors from Hogwarts School and had been instrumental in finally destroying the evil Lord Voldemort, whom no one was afraid to name any more. Unfortunately, during the battle several of Harry's associates were zapped by enemy fire. Here is the inventory of those people: Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore, Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnigan, Cho Chang, and Cedric Diggory's younger brother. Nevertheless, he still had his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, and since today was his 18th birthday, he was more concerned with cake and presents than he was with grief for dead people.  
  
Harry no longer lived with his aunt and uncle. They had been killed almost immediately after Voldemort rose to power again. His cousin Dudley had joined a circus and was proclaimed to be "equivalent to an adult killer whale" in weight and looks. At the moment Harry was at a hotel in Las Vegas, ready to go downstairs and use magic to win muggle money in the slot machines. It was an empty existence, but Harry hadn't yet thought of anything else to do with his life.  
  
As Harry was getting out of the shower, Ron and Hermioen apparated into his room, carrying cake and presents. "Well, hello my friends!" said Harry, quickly putting on a towel.  
  
"Sorry, Harry, we thought you'd be in the casino." Ron replied quickly.  
  
"I was out at a party last night. Why would I be awake so early anyway. It's not like I have a quidditch match to go to." Harry responded annoyedly.  
  
"We just came to surprise you for your birthday. Well, Hermione, I guess that's what we get for trying to be nice to 'famous Harry Potter'."  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ron, calm down. Harry, happy birthday. I brought you these books of complicated spells to humiliate you into admitting yet again that I'm much smarter than you. Are you learning a lot this summer?"  
  
"Plenty."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
"Muggles are stupid. They put their money in machines, knowing it will never come out again."  
  
Hermione assumed a stern look. "Harry, I think what you're doing is wrong. What would the Minister of Magic say if he knew you were using your wizard powers to win money in muggle casinos?"  
  
"Ron hasn't told him, has he?" Harry asked suspiciously.  
  
"Why does everyone talk about me in third person?" Ron asked, jumping into the conversation once again. "Of course I haven't told Percy about Harry's gambling problem. He wouldn't believe me anyway. He still thinks I purposely cursed him during the battle with Voldemort. Damn bastard!"  
  
"Shut up, Ron!" Harry and Hermione said simultaneously before returning to their own conversation. But when Ron began to sulk, Harry tought it would be best to appease him before he threw a tantrum.  
  
"Don't worry, Ron. We still respect you. And if Percy really bothers you, we can hire Malfoy to knock him off for you."  
  
"Draco Malfoy?"  
  
"The very same. He's gotten out of the pathetic resurrected Voldemort supporters group and started the wizard mafia."   
  
Hermione suddenly had a very dreamy look which did not please Ron at all. Harry, sensing that his comment about Malfoy was triggering a fight, had a sudden idea. "Let's go down to the casino. I'll teach you the tricks of winning."  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Um...can I see your ID...sir?" The security guard had hardly finished speaking when Ron, Harry, and Hermione pulled out their wands in classic Western fashion and cast a stupidity spell on him. He spent the rest of his shift talking to inaminate objects, to the great delight of the three wizards.  
  
"This machine," said Harry knowingly, "can be controlled by a simple spell."  
  
"Oooh", responded Hermione, finally feeling as though her years of school had had a purpose.   
  
Harry took a muggle coin out of his pocket and put it in the slot machine. Instead of pulling the lever at the side, he tapped the machine with his wand and muttered some words, "draco dormiens oogly boblioe."  
  
"Harry, that wasn't a spell," Ron said angrily, "that's . . ." But what it was Harry did not find out at that time because a light flashed and a load of muggle money spewed forth to bury Ron.  
"Awmff...helffff!" said Ron's squealy voice from under the mound of coins.  
  
"Oh, Harry, you've transfigured Ron into money. That's very advanced and illegal magic. I'm surprised that you could do it without both Ron and I disparaging you," Hermione said in about one second. Once Harry deciphered what she had said, he responded.  
  
"Oh, Hermione, you're worse than a muggle sometimes. Ron is merely trapped under the crushing weight of this money that I won."   
  
Hermione gasped and started digging through the coins. "Where is he? Where is he? I'll kill you, Harry! I'll kill you!"  
  
"Do you realize you're saying everything twice?"  
  
"Damn you, Harry Potter! Damn you!"  
  
"Yeah, I agree!" said Ron, having just emerged from the pile of coins. Hermione seemed relieved briefly, but quickly became stern and annoying again.  
  
"That wasn't a very good idea. Supposing a teacher had caught you."  
  
"For the last time, we're not in school any more!!!!!!!" Harry and Ron both yelled, but at slightly different times so that Hermione couldn't understand either of them.  
  
Now if you've supposed that all of this happened without drawing the attention of anyone in the rather crowded casino, you're right. They are all unimportant background characters. But even backdrops cannot ignore wizards who take their wands out for the second time in five minutes, and this is what Harry, Ron, and Hermione did when they saw numerous darkly clad security guards walking toward them from every corner of the room. Even the brainwashed muggles at the slot machines could not avoid this scene.  
  
"Congratulations, kids, you won the $100 million jackpot in addition to this immovable pile of money. Just have to make sure you're twenty-one."  
  
"We're twenty-one" Harry said without being echoed by anyone. Ron and Hermione, though they had not been scared of the security guards before, suddenly had an odd premonition that something deeply strange was happening.  
  
"Let's see your ID then, Harry," said the conceited security guard, conceited because he knew Harry's name was Harry and knew that Harry didn't know the origin of that knowledge.  
  
Then Harry pulled out his wand, which was somehow back in his pocket and pointing it at the man in front of him, smirked and said, "Here's my ID, fool." Harry was astonished when the guard, whose name tag suggested that he was called Bob, pulled out his own wand and cast a paralyzing astonishment spell on Ron and Hermione. This had little additional effect. Harry realized he was alone, but he wouldn't let that scare him. "So, Bob, I guess it's down to you and me, and your many allies."  
  
"That's right, Harry, you're just like your father."  
  
"Everyone says that. What does it mean anyway?"  
  
"We're just trying to give you a sense of identity." Bob looked as though he would say more but paused when a tall dark figure appeared behind him. Harry saw that this person, or whatever it was, was wearing a pinstriped cloak pulled down over his head. He also had a hat on, but that's insignificant.  
  
"Oh no!" Harry said astonishedly, "It's the new Minister of Magic."  
  
"It surely is," said Percy Weasley, throwing back the hood of his cloak and knocking the precariously placed hat to the floor. Eyeing Harry and his pile of money suspiciously, Percy took a notebook out of his pocket and began checking things off. "Well, Harry, you just earned yourself four weeks in Azkaban. Who's stupid now?"   
  



	2. Escape from Azkaban

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything, though I wish I did. Harry Potter is J.K. Rowling's, and Star Wars and Indiana Jones belong to Lucasfilm, I do believe.   
  
Chapter Two: Escape from Azkaban  
  
  
Harry awoke from yet another odd dream about a blonde muggle girl screaming about defamation of character and other absurd concepts. It was his fifth day in Azkaban, and Ron and Hermione had come to visit him every day. They were in the cells on either side. Azkaban had changed a bit since the overthrow of Voldemort. Most notably, dementors no longer prowled the halls sucking life out of the inmates. Additionally, the curtains had changed, all furniture with bite marks on it had been replaced, and bars had been put in to guard against escape. This had been a serious problem since the exodus of the dementors.  
  
Harry rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. For a moment he thought he was at Hogwarts, in his tower dormitory, ready to kick Slytherin's ass on the quidditch field. This was obviously not the case, and you're probably laughing at Harry for imagining it. To his credit, he did not dwell on this fantasy long.   
  
There was one small window to his cell, but the curtains were a bit too short, allowing a piercing ray of sunlight to penetrate the room and metaphorically stab Harry in the eye. He sat up in bed, threw off his gray blanket and talked to himself about his many troubles. "I wish I was in one of the dungeons sometimes," he muttered, "then I could at least sleep past four."   
  
In his rage about the curtains, Harry began kicking everything in reach. Unfortunately, he kicked the wall, which was quite solid and clearly did not want to be kicked. He hopped about on one foot cursing life, and Ron, and Azkaban, and magic, and Ron, and Percy. Then he fell to his knees and clutched the bars of his cell. "What is this hell I inhabit! Or what demon from the depths of hell created thee!" he shouted, his head tilted back slightly as though he were speaking to someone taller than him.   
  
"Are you still mad about the curtains?" asked a fat old Azkaban guard incredulously. He had been drawn to Harry's cell by the noise of a prisoner's imminent insanity and arrived just in time to see Harry drop his head as though he had died suddenly.  
  
Harry stayed on his knees and spoke in a breathless whisper, "You left me here to die. You don't know what it's like in this awful place..." He did not really finish speaking but trailed off into silence. Then he shuddered involuntarily. Nevertheless, his dramatic outpouring of emotion did not impress the guard.  
  
"Listen! I've been here years longer than you have. I've never seen anyone who couldn't last five days, even with dementors roaming the place." He gave a snide look which Harry couldn't see and trudged away.  
  
Harry leapt to his feet and paced the room, looking again and again at the drably colored objects that had become so familiar to him in the past few days. On his ninth turned he paused at the desk (he had a desk and a fairly nice one too) and picked up an old and weathered copy of "Hogwarts: A History". He had never read it but had heard most of its content from Hermione. He read the first page, which was mostly about the significance of Hogwarts through the centuries, and was already confused.   
  
"Hermione! Hermione!!!" he called, turning about in circles as though he wasn't quite sure where she was.  
  
"What? What? You don't have to yell. I'm a few feet away from you." said a voice from beyond the left wall.  
  
"Sorry," Harry said, hanging his head in shame, then realizing Hermione couldn't see this penitence and lifting it again. "I just started reading 'Hogwarts: A History' and..."  
  
"No!" exclaimed voices from both sides of the cell. Then Ron laughed loudly. Being laughed at by Ron was something Harry could not stand.  
  
"I was bored," he said to the wall, then paused. When he spoke again it was in an even more annoyed tone. "Why are you here anyway? This prison experience would have been so much more tolerable without you."  
  
"Well, Percy and I decided we're not family any more after that incident in Las Vegas. So from now on whenever you go to Azkaban, I go as your accomplice. Please don't get sent here often. Stupid Percy and his stupid rules!"  
  
"Ron! Ron!" Hermione interrupted.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I was going to criticize you for speaking ill of your elder brother, but then I realized you're probably right to curse him."  
  
"You're...you're agreeing with me?" Ron stuttered, straining to believe what he had heard.  
  
"Yeah! That's right."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes! Without a doubt."  
  
"I love you, Hermione."  
  
"I love you, Ron." I can't believe it took us seven years to say this."  
  
"I can't believe I'm hearing you say it," said Harry in his most irritated voice. "I'm escaping now." He took out his wand, which had conveniently not been taken from him when he was dragged to prison, and tapped the door, muttering "Alohomora." The door sprang open, and Harry strolled leisurely into the corridor, taking his book with him. He had become rather fond of it, the first page at least. "Who's coming with me?" he asked, raising his arms and smiling.  
  
Hermione spoke first. "Harry, you're going to be in so much trouble. What if...?"  
  
She didn't finish her sentence because Ron interrupted her. "I'm coming!" he shouted and laughed merrily.  
  
Hermione paused and considered the situation. "I'm coming too. Let me out, Harry! Let me out! I don't care if I say everything multiple times. Let me out!" She was acting like Harry had a moment ago, shaking the bars as though she had to escape from being crushed by the giant rock in Indiana Jones. Suddenly, she remembered that she too had a wand and used it to open the door to her cell. She saw that Harry was still busy opening Ron's door (Ron had no wand, and both wizards seemed to have forgotten the spell). Hermione performed the spell herself, and all three were free. Well, Ron was free. The others had been freed earlier, as you remember. Actually, none of them were free yet because they were still inside Azkaban fortress. This was a thought which began to trouble Harry.  
  
There was an awkward pause when Ron and Hermione were reunited. Harry had barely begun to worry about an escape route and to give his "Let's get out of here before the guards find us" speech when his two companions fell into each other's arms and started kissing madly. Harry watched them carry on for a minute until they stopped for air. He then used the opportunity to signal that they needed to find a way out. Ignoring the glares he received, he led the way down the hall toward what appeared to be a dead end. "There should be a hidden door somewhere around here," he said, frantically searching for one.  
  
"Don't you remember the way from when they brought us in here?" Ron asked condescendingly.  
  
"Of course not!" Harry practically yelled in response. "I was knocked out."   
  
"Damn! So was I!" said Ron, thinking back as far as he could. Then, turning to Hermione and smiling sweetly, he asked casually, "You don't happen to remember the way out, do you? Darling?"  
  
"No," Hermione responded, "but if we really concentrate and use the Force we'll find the way out...or die trying."  
  
"Use the what?" Harry asked, "And who's dying? I'm not dying just to get out of four weeks in this place."  
  
"I won't answer your second question now, but regarding the first one, I'm ashamed that you don't know the answer." Hermione unlinked arms with Ron so that she could put her hands on her hips and stare down Harry. "The Force is an energy field created by all living things. There's a lot of philosophy associated with it, but the main point is that it gives you the ability to make things fly and control people's minds. It's really a kick-ass weapon, if you ask me."  
  
Harry and Ron stared at her, dumbfounded, and Harry whispered to Ron, "I think she's confused. She's mixing reality with films."  
  
"What are films?"  
  
"I'll explain later. Hermione, let's use the Force to..." But Hermione was already at the other end of the hall, uncovering a hidden door.  
  
"You did it, Hermione!" Ron yelled.  
  
"Of course I did. Reflect for a moment and see what would have become of all your adventures if I hadn't been here to save you." Hermione opened the door only to find the fat guard Harry had spoken to standing on the other side.  
  
Harry gasped. "Gasp! Hermione, cast a spell on him!"   
  
Ron, who was still considering whether Hermione was right in her assertion about their adventures, didn't notice a thing until Harry grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door. They had already wasted much valuable spell-casting time talking about what spells to cast, and finally Hermione threw up her hands in a gesture of pretended defeat.  
  
"I'm tired of spells," she said to no one in particular, "let's just run for it."   
  
"Good idea, Hermione!" Ron and Harry exclaimed.  
  
The three wizards knocked over the fat guard as they ran past him into the adjoining corridor. Then they slid down a spiral staircase, sprinted down two other hallways, through a hidden door, and out the main gate (luckily unguarded at the time) onto the island beach.   
  
There they collapsed on the sand and laughed at their crazy adventure, consciously ignoring the nagging voice in the backs of their minds that said they still had to cross several miles of ocean. 


End file.
